Upon hearing this, Yun Mo unconsciously tightened his grip and snapped off a branch as thick as his wrist.
"Those Hu people have such big hearts!"
"Master, we can reach Sword City by crossing these mountains. Do the Hu people even want to take Sword City?" The man in black stared wide-eyed in horror.
"How is things at home?" Yun Mo didn't answer his question, but instead asked about things at home.
The man in black said respectfully, "Everyone in the manor has been rescued, but the lady insists on not leaving first and wants to wait for you outside Sword City, Master."
Yun Mo gazed towards Sword City for a moment, then turned and walked towards Xin City. "Let's go!"
"Master, aren't we going to Sword City to meet up with Madam?"
The man in black quickly followed.
"There are still many people gathered at the gate of Xincheng. The Hu people will attack soon. We cannot let them die needlessly under the Hu people's swords."
Yun Mo's cool voice carried a hint of helplessness.
The emperor, blinded by treacherous officials, is incompetent and foolish; his father and brother have already died for the country. He has to think of his mother and the entire Yun family, and doesn't want to make a pointless sacrifice.
In the mountains and forests.
Lin Yinan returned carrying a wild boar, causing a commotion among the villagers in the camp.
"My goodness! Anan, how did you manage to kill such a big wild boar?"
"This wild boar must weigh at least 300 pounds, right?"
"Ordinary people probably couldn't hunt it."
"That's not true. Look at the arrow holes on that wild boar. If I gave you a bow, you probably wouldn't even be able to draw it."
The crowd was buzzing with discussion, their mouths practically watering.
Hearing the commotion, the old woman rushed over, pushed aside the surrounding villagers, and shouted at the top of her lungs, "What are you all doing here? Anyone who didn't know better would think you were trying to steal my granddaughter's prey."
After putting the wild boar down, Li Shulan wrung out a damp cloth and reached out to help her wipe it.
Lin Yinan took the handkerchief from her hand. "Mother, I can do it myself."
Despite feeling sticky and uncomfortable, she tried her best to endure it, only washing her hands and haphazardly wiping her face.
She turned to the old woman watching the wild boar and asked, "Grandma, what do you plan to do with the wild boar?"
The old lady looked pained. She was a shrewd and thrifty person. "I already asked your uncle to call the village chief. We can't possibly eat such a big wild boar ourselves, and it won't keep in this heat. How about we keep a leg for ourselves and let the village chief take the rest to share? What do you think, Anan?"
“Let’s do as Grandma says, that’s what I think too,” Lin Yinan said.
The village chief came over quickly, and the old lady told him her idea. The village chief clapped his hands and laughed, his eyes narrowing into slits.
"Alright! Alright! Then I'll take the initiative to chop up the pork and make a big pot of wild vegetable soup, so everyone can at least have a bowl."
Yu Suqin mingled in the crowd, having not had a full meal in the few days since she fled.
Although she also craved meat, she still spat out a disdainful "Pah!"
"Those who know her say she's going to hunt wild boar, but those who don't might think she's going to have sex in the wild. She's all dirty, she doesn't look like a daughter of a scholar at all, she's really disgracing the reputation of scholars."
Hearing this, Aunt Li, who was standing nearby, frowned and sneered, "They didn't ask you to eat it, so why are you making such a fuss?"
The village chief had already told the villagers that the whole village would drink the wild boar soup together, and the villagers were overjoyed.
Several men who knew how to slaughter pigs volunteered to go out and slaughter pigs.
The village chief then pointed to four or five women who were quick and efficient and had good cooking skills, who would be in charge of cooking soup later.
Aunt Li was among them. She stepped forward and repeated to the village chief the words that Yu Suqin had said to slander Lin Yinan.
Lin Yinan saved their family's only son, and once things settle down, she'll definitely set up a memorial tablet for him to live a long life. She won't tolerate anyone slandering her like this.
"Village chief, I'm innocent! It's that gossipy woman from the Li family who's slandering me!" Yu Su immediately cried out from the crowd.
At this moment, two or three villagers immediately stood up to testify against her.
“Village chief, we can testify that what Aunt Li said is true.”
Unexpectedly, Hao, who was usually well-liked, found that the villagers all sided with Li Shulan and her daughter the moment they appeared.
"If you don't want to eat it, then don't. Wild boar meat is tough and dry, what's so good about it?"
Yu Suqin was furious and stormed off with half a basket of wild vegetables on her back.
With many hands making light work, the villagers quickly slaughtered the wild boar and cut off the largest pig leg for Lin Yinan's family.
The village women didn't even throw away the wild boar's internal organs and offal; they scrubbed them clean with handfuls of wood ash.
The meat was chopped into small pieces and thrown into five large pots along with the pork bones, along with a piece of ginger, and simmered.
Each family would also bring some wild vegetables they had dug themselves, all kinds of them. When the pork soup turned milky white, they would throw the wild vegetables in.
Zhang cut less than two pounds of wild boar meat from Lin Yinan's family and cooked it into porridge with wild vegetables and millet. The children are growing and can't just eat wild vegetables.
Grandma Zhao brought back a bowl of the meat soup that the village had prepared for everyone.
"Mother, I also want to eat meat soup."
Yu Suqin's nine-year-old third daughter, Lin Chunfang, smelled the aroma of meat wafting through the air, and drool dripped from the corner of her mouth onto her clothes.
Yu Suqin felt a lump in her throat, unable to swallow her anger.
So he raised his hand and slapped Lin Chunfang hard across the face.
"Eat! Eat! Are you a reincarnated starving ghost?"
Lin Chunfang's face immediately became red and swollen.
She grinned and started wailing loudly, not caring about anything else.
Lin Dongmei quickly pulled her away to prevent her from being beaten again.
"Mother, Third Sister is still young, why should you get angry with her?"
Lin Qiutao glanced at her gluttonous younger sister with disdain.
It would have been better if she hadn't said anything, because as soon as she did, Yu Suqin threw the bowl of wild vegetable soup she was holding onto the ground.
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